Posted on 08/18/2014 1:15:15 AM PDT by wetphoenix
RISHON LEZION Israel (Reuters) - Israeli police on Sunday blocked more than 200 far-right Israeli protesters from rushing guests at a wedding of a Jewish woman and Muslim man as they shouted "death to the Arabs" in a sign of tensions stoked by the Gaza war.
Several dozen police, including members of the force's most elite units, formed human chains to keep the protesters from the wedding hall's gates and chased after many who defied them. Four protesters were arrested, and there were no injuries.
A lawyer for the couple, Maral Malka, 23, and Mahmoud Mansour, 26, both from the Jaffa section of Tel Aviv, had unsuccessfully sought a court order to bar the protest. He obtained backing for police to keep protesters 200 metres (yards) from the wedding hall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion.
The protest highlighted a rise in tensions between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel in the past two months amid a monthlong Gaza war, the kidnap and slaying of three Israeli teens in June followed by a revenge choking and torching to death of a Palestinian teen in the Jerusalem area.
A group called Lehava, which organized the wedding demonstration, has harassed Jewish-Arab couples in the past, often citing religious grounds for their objections to intermarriage. But they have rarely protested at the site of a wedding.
The groom told Israel's Channel 2 TV the protesters failed to derail the wedding or dampen its spirit. "We will dance and be merry until the sun comes up. We favor coexistence," he said.
'DEATH TO THE ARABS' THREATS CHANTED
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Let her learn what Islam is really like up close and personal. If she lucky she’ll get out of it alive.
Is water wet? Is the sun hot? Do bears poop in the woods?
So many things wrong in this article:
1. The group is the Israeli version of the Westboro idiots.
2. This is NOT an interfaith wedding. The idiot lady converted (which she will regret, but has the legal right to do under Israeli secular law, at age 18). It’s fairly common, and yes, Christians become Jewish, muslims become Jewish, and Jewish people convert as well.
3. The issue is confusing because Jewish law does not recognize conversion FROM Judaism (a view I agree with theologically -— but disagree the State should have anything to do with it -— the issue is between this woman and G-d -— and will haunt her children).
4. Part of the issue is also that there is no secular marriage — you have to be married by your religion, and can’t be married if you have no religion. This was done, in no small part, to avoid gay marriage in Israel. A by-product is secular couples (like this one probably is) fake converts to Christianity or, more commonly, Islam.
Is that true? My understanding has always been that marriage has been in the domain of the religious authorities in Israel (as opposed to the civil authorities) since the state was established (and well before that, under the British Mandate, and even under the Ottomans).
It now has the effect of precluding same-sex marriages, of course, and that may be a significant reason it has not changed in recent years, but I don't think the lack of civil marriage in Israel was done in order to avoid same-sex marriage.
“It now has the effect of precluding same-sex marriages, of course, and that may be a significant reason it has not changed in recent years, but I don’t think the lack of civil marriage in Israel was done in order to avoid same-sex marriage.”
Your point is fair. I would probably re-state this a bit with some history.
There are a lot of people who are “Jewish for the law of return” -— for example, I have a good friend who had three Jewish grandparents, but his maternal grandmother was ethnic Russian with an invalid conversion. So, he was not Jewish under Jewish law, although perfectly acceptable for aliyah. (He subsequently underwent an Orthodox conversion in the IDF, which 99% of people in his situation do.)
A lot of secular “Jewish-for-aliyah” Israelis like in my friend’s situation want to marry a Jewish person or another secular person like themselves -— and cannot do so (although there are ample secular co-habitation agreements available that have the legal effects of marriage for all purposes).
Anyway, a lot of people want to resolve the above issue, but don’t want to go through a conversion, because they have no intention of living an Observant life -— a decision I respect, actually, and I appreciate they don’t want to make a mockery of conversion.
That said, no resolution is going to happen because of the gay lobby pushing for civil marriage.
So, yes, that is a long way of saying “I agree it didn’t start that way, but the problem (and similar problems) was foreseen so it’s not going to change.
Understood. I’m familiar with the bare outlines of the issue, but frankly haven’t paid too much attention as I have no current plans to make aliyah (or enter into a gay marriage, for that matter), so I appreciate the explanation/clarification.
“YOU NEVER SEE A JEWISH MAN MARRY AN ARAB WOMEN.
WHY IS THAT?”
I can think of only one example. Some putz named Wiener married a muslim. Remember him?
BTW, look what happened to him, the grease ball. Does it look like a good marriage to you? A Muslim Brotherhood representative married to a Jerk?
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